


Eternal

by ruric



Category: Highlander: The Series
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2006-03-24
Updated: 2006-03-24
Packaged: 2017-11-13 15:52:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 725
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/505189
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ruric/pseuds/ruric
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sunset</p>
            </blockquote>





	Eternal

Ten thousand, fifty thousand, a hundred thousand, he’d lost count long, long years ago of how many times he’s witnessed this.

Blue sky shading to purple as the sun slips towards the horizon, soft, golden rays of light penetrating the clouds to lance down and slide across the ground. 

Eyes narrowing as he squints into the light, he could almost make himself believe God has stretched out his hand, fingertips extended to stroke across the surface of His creation, marveling at its beauty, its resilience and continued existence.

Born into a world where the setting of the sun was an act of the gods, he’d lost his first life to the vicious upward thrust of an iron blade gutting him from groin to ribs. How strange after so very many years to find that his mouth floods with moisture at the memory, metal acid bright on his tongue and the taste of blood heavy in the back of his throat, making him shudder.

He’d lived through the years when logic and discourse began, recalling debates lasting long into the night, well past the rising of the moon. The scent of dry soil and herbs heavy in the air as men spoke, their voices persuasive and cajoling. His Brothers had been many years gone, but he’d found a kind of kinship in the company of philosophers and healers. By then he’d been aware history was being created in front of his eyes as he watched them, sometimes asking a question, seeking clarification of a point and documenting their discussions.

Centuries after during which he’d see the birth of science, its first tentative baby steps, seeking to understand the world. The thirst for knowledge driving them on, exploring the vast unknown, children playing in the arenas of the gods until they were burned, but never giving up, never stopping, looking beyond this earth and out past the moon to the stars.

So many women and men whom he has loved, who have been his friends, and with most he had to watch the bloom of youth fade from their skin as they came into their strength and power, always unaware of how short, how fragile their lives were. Wasted years raging in anger at their loss until he realized he was their witness, as long as he remembered, as long as he could hear their laughter and their voices they would live. 

Maybe that was when he began to fear death – to avoid the fights he knew he could win - because he couldn’t take the risk, couldn’t entrust their memories to someone who wouldn’t value them.

A huff of laughter rises in his chest, a smile curving his lips as he considers the sheer vanity in thinking himself their guardian.

The fingers stroking through his hair pause. He feels the tenseness in the muscles of the thigh he is so carelessly using a pillow and senses the question even before it comes.

“What are you thinking about?”

Years together and then apart, but still he comes back to the man who ripped his anonymity away, who made him face what he really was; the oldest, possibly the first of them all, and soon they will be the last.

“The past…” the words are barely spoken, breathed out as the sun finally begins to dip below the horizon. 

His skin goosing, unspoken words caught in his throat, locked behind his teeth, because for all that he knows intellectually, rationally, logically that the sun will rise again he always has the desire to voice a soft prayer to wish it well on its way, to ask for its return the next day.

He turns to look up into solemn brown eyes, eyes that have always been able to see past the façade, to see him for who he really is, from the first day they met.

The smile broadens as he reaches up, long fingers fisting into silky, dark hair dragging Duncan down, lips whispering words into his ear, “…the future.”

A kiss brushed across the curve of Duncan’s cheek, tongue sliding into his mouth as the heat rises between them. When the time comes, Duncan will be the one to go on – trusted with the memories of them all, to be honored or forgotten, and Methos has no regrets, no doubts that this is how it should end.


End file.
